Bicker and Banter
by Sweet Danish Yummy
Summary: The Espada have a hard time getting along with one another as they wait for Aizen to arrive at the meeting.


**Title:** Banter and Bicker  
**Characters:** Espada  
**Rating:** K+  
**Warning:** SPOILERS if you don't know what the Espada are. And even then, only vaguely.  
**Summary:** The Espada are waiting for Aizen to get to the meeting. Really, he should gag them until he's present. They'd get along better if they couldn't bicker at one another.  
**Author's Note:** This was written for a friend of mine, Shini, in response to a request she made.  
**Disclaimer:** I am not Kubo Tite, thus I do not own Bleach. I do not own these characters. I am only borrowing them for my own enjoyment.

* * *

"Could you possibly be more annoying?" Her voice behind her collar was cold, and the pale glare she delivered to the man sitting on her right was pure icy irritation. 

"What was that?" The round, stiff material like a moon rising pristine white behind him made it hard to see to the sides. Nnoitra was forced to partially turn to gaze at the woman with one visibly amused eye. "Perhaps you should move your collar, if you want to be heard."

"If we put that ridiculous thing in front of your mouth would it shut you up?" Came a voice from his other side, drowsy and slow. "I could do with the peace and quiet."

"Did you not sleep well, Stark-san?" Across the table and down a seat the eighth Espada smiled benignly, light reflecting off the lens of his glasses. "Perhaps you should go to bed early tonight, rather than staying up to kiss Tousen-san's ass?"

The yawning Espada shot the speaker a filthy look, somewhat marred by the rumpled tangle of his hair and the faint imprint of the pattern of his gloves on his cheek, leftover from his impromptu nap at the table.

"I don't know what you're--"

"Shut up, both of you." Grimmjow interrupted, slouching in his seat with his hands behind his head.

"Yeah." The low, gravely voice rolled from one end of the table to the other, the speaker picking boredly at the scar marring the wrinkled valley of his features. "Ain't no point tryin' to deny the truth anyway, is there?"

"I would say there's plenty point, especially since you seem to be misinformed as to the definition of 'truth,' old man." Stark countered, fully awake and obviously annoyed. To his right Ulquiorra sighed softly, though he did not yet speak.

"Don't insult my intelligence, boy. Only fools fight over the truth."

"While I might be inclined to agree with you, the entire argument is moot in light of the fact that what you're accusing me of is a _lie_."

"Truth, lie, fact, fiction, I don't give a shit." Yammy grunted, chin propped on his hand and yawning widely to accent exactly how much he didn't care for the current conversation. "Meeting going to start some time this century?"

"We're waiting on our esteemed leader." If Halibel's voice had been hard to hear behind her collar, the ninth Espada was even harder to make out behind the long mask covering the entirety of his face. Perhaps because of this, he rarely said anything, so that when he did speak a momentary silence fell, part shock at hearing that voice again.

Stark recovered first, grumbling under his breath and resting his cheek on his gloved palm, closing his eyes. "Wish he'd hurry it on up. He's the one that called this emergency meeting."

"Aizen-sama will arrive when he is ready." Ulquiorra's soft voice cut through the tail end of the other Espada's statement, and though his expression never changed there was a distinct chill of reprove in his gaze as he turned to the one on his left.

Grimmjow rolled his eyes, slumping further in his seat. When he spoke it was with a snort to interrupt his grunted words.

Ulquiorra turned that chilly gaze to the man across from him, mild annoyance settling, for a second, in the line of his mouth. "What was that, Grimmjow?"

"Nothin', suck-up-san."

Ulquiorra wasn't one to rise to such bait, though there was a momentary twist to his expression that told Grimmjow that he'd hit a sore spot. He made a mental note of this so that he could pick at it later, when they weren't surrounded by everyone else. Before he could continue, though, there was a shifting, clattering sound as the arrancar on Grimmjow's right moved in his seat, lifting a hand to fiddle with the bone-necklace resting against his throat.

"We serve Aizen-sama."

"No shit. Figure that one out on yer own?" Yammy called out from down the table, rolling his eyes.

He was tall enough that he didn't even have to lean around the arrancar sitting to his right, merely turning his head to offer Yammy one flat, dull glare before continuing in his slow, deep voice. "For us to wait for him is simply part of our duty to him. We should never create an occasion where he must wait for us."

Grimmjow refrained from snorting this time, mostly because the thought of leaving Aizen to wait on them was a thought that left him with a slight chill.

Stork, though he appeared to be sleeping, grunted and adjusted his elbow on the table. "Not like we got a lot goin' on anyway."

"Speak for yourself." Nnoitra's oily voice interrupted, offering the woman on his left a wide, slimy smile.

She didn't say anything verbally, but the look she gave him spoke volumes of exactly how delusional she thought the fifth Espada was.


End file.
